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 All over India the Gomukh is an auspicious emblem. Ancient drinking fountains and clear springs are often directed to flow through spouts fashioned in the form of a cosds head.
Tripura is the gomukh of the north-east. It thrusts out into Bangladesh with only its neck attached to Mizoram and Assam. It is a mountainous land, cleft by the valleys of the rivers Gomati, Haora, Longli, Juri Deo, Manu, Dhali, Khowai, Muhuri and Feni. And since it lies within the monsoon zone, being drenched with more than 400 cms of rain every year, the mountains and the valleys are lush and green enriching the rivers as they flow swiftly through the land and into Bangladesh. Here they give their valuable silt to the farmers of this neighbouring country before pouring into the Bay of Bengal.
But, as in all things decreed by nature, the enrichment does not pass only one way. From the plains of Bangladesh came people seeking their fortunes in the frontier-lands of Tripura. They brought with them their culture and their religion, sharing their ways with those of the tribes who had already settled in this area.
For though there are legends which speak of the existence of Tripura as a political entity from the days of the epic Mahabharata, most historians prefer to admit that the land now known as Tripura was consolidated by a tribal king named Chhenthum FA (Maha Manikya). This probably covered a period ranging from the end of the 14th century AD and to the beginning of the 15th. And when the dynasty had established itself, it dropped the title "FA" and assumed the dynastic title of Manikya. In the Museum in Agartala, the capital of Tripura, there are portraits of Manikya princes : men who held themselves with great dignity, proud of their Indo-Mongoban origins.
One of the many enlightened rulers in the Manikyan dynasty was Maharaja Virehandra Manikya Bahadur, a great patron of arts and a friend of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The Poet's novel "Rajashri', and the play Visharajan, which grew out of legends of the Manikya dynasty, reflected this friendship between the poet and the prince. And before the second world war changed the face of Europe and Asia, Maharaja Bir Bikram travelled extensively and did much to modernise his State, including the establishment of an aerodrome in Agartala.
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